Well, there ya go. Hate the company, love the stock. Bought a huge load as it hit resistance at 24. Actually, I had to chase it, as my order was for 23.0, and it never made it. Since then, I've been wondering if it will make it through resistance at 26.

Tomorrow, I think it will.

MSFT is evil. So am I.

Nat Ersoz
Thursday, June 26, 2003

Microsoft buys another judge.

NoName
Thursday, June 26, 2003

"... baught another judge"

Hardly. Just another frivolous lawsuit being shoved through the courts. If Sun can't stand on it's own 2 feet why should the government force their competition to hold 'em up.

Lucas Goodwin
Thursday, June 26, 2003

I am actually very happy that MS is NOT forced to distribute the Java virtual machine.

Why is that?

I am a competent Visual C++ and Delphi programmer.

About one year ago, I started learning Java, but for some reason, it doesn't stick on me.

I understand the language and the libraries, and can write programs, but for some reason the entire Java thing (language + app) feels extremely weird and unconfortable.

I simply don't like it.

As a developer, I value things such as fast program execution, powerful RAD environment, easy access to any API (especially including Windows API and COM objects), the possibility of building highly functional and rich interfaces, high productivity (judged by Delphi standards, not by C + some weird library standards), etc.

Java is none of these (ok, there is Borland JBuilder, but it's a weird tool).

Also, to someone used to C++ and Delphi, the Java language feels like a small, unconfortable car.

So, I have many (personal and objective) reasons I don't like the Java language.

I certainly don't want to work in Java. It is plain weird, unproductive (compared to Delphi), not really suited to building excellent GUI apps, it has low performance, etc.

For me, any bad news about Java is very good news.

Any bad news about Java means that in the future, there is a smaller chance to be forced to work in Java.

John K.
Thursday, June 26, 2003

>"If Sun can't stand on it's own 2 feet why should the government force their competition to hold 'em up."

If Microsoft still refuses to fulfill their original contract with Sun to ship a genuine JVM with Windows, why should the government allow them to get away with it?

T. Norman
Thursday, June 26, 2003

Java suxx badly. It is the new COBOL - yet another boring, very low performing programming language for business apps.

I hope they fail and C# wins. At least it's a decent language with decent components.

Also, Visual Studio .NET surpasses everything I seen in the Javra world.

Death to Java!

JavaK
Thursday, June 26, 2003

I concur with the java haters. Anything that hastens java's demise is cool with me.

dinkus
Thursday, June 26, 2003

It's becoming a moot point.

Dell and HP recently announced that they will start shipping their desktop PC's with Sun's JRE loaded. I doubt Sony, Gateway, et al. will be far behind.

I would classify Java as a semi-proprietary language. Sun controls the spec, but they publish it and others can write JVMs and compilers. If Sun goes out of business or abandons it, other companies like IBM will ensure that it lasts.

Whereas with fully proprietary languages like VB or Delphi, nobody else is allowed to write compilers, and if Microsoft or Borland abandons it, that's the end of it.

T. Norman
Friday, June 27, 2003

> would classify Java as a semi-proprietary language.
> Sun controls the spec, but they publish it and others
> can write JVMs and compilers. If Sun goes out of
> business or abandons it, other companies like IBM will
> ensure that it lasts.

> Whereas with fully proprietary languages like VB or
> Delphi, nobody else is allowed to write compilers, and
> if Microsoft or Borland abandons it, that's the end of
> it.

Yes, this is true. But the chance of MS abandoing VB, or Borland abandoning Delphi is very slim.

Also, personally I would rather take that risk and work with something I really enjoy, than with an "open", "semiproprietary" language that I don't like.

Maybe I'm old school about this, but I prefer C, C++ and Python to Java.

Java feels to me like a crippled language. Ok, you can do anything in Java, but so you can in Modula-2, or some other bondage-and-discipline language.

K9
Friday, June 27, 2003

Nat Ersoz: "Since then, I've been wondering if it will make it through resistance at 26."

Don't forget to check if the stars are aligned as well...

BC
Friday, June 27, 2003

> Whereas with fully proprietary languages like VB or
> Delphi, nobody else is allowed to write compilers, and
> if Microsoft or Borland abandons it, that's the end of
> it.

The free pascal compiler can compile delphi's object pascal. There is even a vcl thingy in the works apparently. http://www.freepascal.org/

As for the Java bashers: *yawn*

Nice
Friday, June 27, 2003

"...bondage and discipline lanaguge..."

*snort* I love that... and whoever said that after using C++, Java feels like a small and uncomfortable car, sure hit the nail on the head. Don't get me wrong, I love Java - but I'm glad I don't have to use it.

For me, the Swing UI is emblematic of the whole Java thing. Swing is brialliantly designed, a true joy to develop with, much better than the MS controls and MFC wrappers - but it's completely frustrating to fight with as an end user (as well as slow as a dead dog)...

Mehndi (it's just a word, I'm a 'mericun)
Friday, June 27, 2003

> I would classify Java as a semi-proprietary language.
> Sun controls the spec, but they publish it and others
> can write JVMs and compilers.

Unless your name is Microsoft, apparently.

You still need to license Java source from Sun to write a JVM, and you need to stick to Sun's rules. Of course MS would say that they /did/ stick to Sun's rules, but that appears to be a matter of interpretation.

Ah well, there's always J#.

Mike Dimmick
Friday, June 27, 2003

I thought the whole irony of this case was that Sun was claiming that not having Java on the Windows client would harm them, yet Java's big success has been on servers. And I don't think anything Microsoft does with C# and .NET is really going to change that significantly ...

Mike S.
Friday, June 27, 2003

Hey friends,

C++ and Delphi are the right tool for some applications. You've got yourself a nice hammer (C++ delphi) there but not all of us are driving nails.

Java is a good language for building integration points in large enterprise applications. Need an application that integrates SQL and XML based data sources and responds in HTML? Try Java and the rich feast of related standards that have grown up around it. In this world of enterprise apps, the write once run anywhere promise of java is true. It's also true that the open standards related to java, like java servlets, have created a highly competent and competitive environment with several options for a developer to choose from. Don't underestimate the value of platform and vendor independence to a large enterprise app or a dot com app.

Good day.

Dr Nimble Cheese
Friday, June 27, 2003

I don't really understand why this is a practical (as opposed to legal) issue

Why don't Sun or somebody make the right Java components install as required (i.e. you download a bit over time as your PC needs it, and it gradually builds up a complete working set).

Also my experience of web pages with Java applets in em (which is what I thought this was about), doesn't make me particularly care if Java's on my PC or not.

> Besides, would you want to wait ten minutes or so while it downloads the UI library?

Definitely yes if it was divided up into 5 seconds over several hours or days

And probably yes, if I wanted the app, even if it was in one go.

S. Tanna
Friday, June 27, 2003

What is the big deal? Surely there was some foul taste from the moral injustice of having the Sun lot getting away with so much perversions, but does it make any difference in the marketplace?
I have never heard of anyone making a Java go/no-go descision based on the fact of wether or not it would be a "must carry" in Windows.

Just me (Sir to you)
Friday, June 27, 2003

-- You still need to license Java source from Sun to write a JVM, and you need to stick to Sun's rules. Of course MS would say that they /did/ stick to Sun's rules, but that appears to be a matter of interpretation.

--
I believe that MS added some proprietary features to their versions of the core classes of the Java API. This meant that developers could write code for the MS JVM that would not run on non-MS JVMs. Hello incompatibility???

Anyone but MS would say MS /did NOT/ stick to Sun's rules.

Java NitPick
Friday, June 27, 2003

>"You still need to license Java source from Sun to write a JVM, and you need to stick to Sun's rules."

You only need a license if you want to include Sun's code for the core classes in your JVM, and want the official "Java" labeling. Commercial distributors of JVMs license it from Sun as it is often cheaper and more reliable (in terms of compatibility) for them to include's Sun code than to rewrite the core themselves, but there are open source projects working on "clean room" JVMs that don't include any of Sun's code. See http://www.kaffe.org . Should Sun go out of business or abandon Java, IBM and other JVM creators will write their own.

>"Of course MS would say that they /did/ stick to Sun's rules, but that appears to be a matter of interpretation."

Sure, if you want to interpret 2+2 as being equal to 5. Their compiler produced code that would malfunction in non-Windows environments, their JVM failed to run code that ran perfectly with other JVMs, and it was found in a court of law that they distributed an incompatible fork of Java in violation of the license terms.

T. Norman
Friday, June 27, 2003

From a contract POV, let the lawyers fight it out.

From an anti-trust POV, Microsoft, as a convicted monopoly, should be forbidden from forbidding any of the OEMs from shipping anything they like along with Windows. This should include discounts for not including competing technologies.

my $0.02

Richard Ponton
Friday, June 27, 2003

> I believe that MS added some proprietary features to their versions of the core classes of the Java API.

The issue with the extensions is that Microsoft's engineers felt Sun's work, especially in the GUI, was not good enough for Windows. They then added their AFC classes to provide better UI's. They also added COM support, which is reasonable. Developers were not obliged to use those.

Sun then made a Dumb Mistake of taking on the Microsoft engineers ( we can do that too!) by developing their JFC and then Swing classes - the better UI that they should have done in the first place. Unfortunately this broke compatibility just as all the popular browsers supported Java.

Friday, June 27, 2003

Richard, for the record, when you say "as a convicted monopoly" you might as well say "I hate Microsoft, and can't stand their products, but here's my opinion"

Because "convicted monopoly" is meaningless from a legal point of view. Well, it *does* mean something. It means you don't know what you're talking about.